HAYLEY, ROBERT (d. 1770?), painter, born in Ireland, studied at Dublin under Robert West. He is chiefly noted for a peculiar method of drawing in black and white chalk, successfully imitating mezzotint. Many of his drawings were in the collections of the Earls of Moira and Mornington. Hayley died in Dublin about 1770.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Pasquin's Artists of Ireland.]
HAYLEY, THOMAS ALPHONSO (1780–1800), sculptor, natural son of William Hayley the poet [q. v.], was born 5 Oct. 1780, and showed in 1794 signs of a love for sculpture. He was encouraged to learn drawing by Joseph Wright of Derby, and having attracted the attention of Romney the painter, and of Flaxman [q. v.], was in 1795 articled to the latter as a resident pupil for three years. He was treated with the greatest affection by both artists, and appears to have shown much promise, even experimenting in oil-painting. In 1798, however, he showed symptoms of ill-health, arising from curvature of the spine, and was compelled to return to his father's cottage at Felpham in Sussex, where, after two years of suffering, he died on 2 May 1800. Hayley modelled busts of Flaxman, Lord Thurlow, and James Stanier Clarke. A medallion by him of Romney was engraved by Caroline Watson for his father's ‘Life of Romney.’ In his father's ‘Essays on Sculpture’ (1800), there are a portrait of young Hayley from a medallion by Flaxman, and a drawing by him of the ‘Death of Demosthenes,’ both engraved by William Blake (1757–1827) [q. v.] His father wrote many sonnets to his memory.
[Hayley's Life of Romney; Gilchrist's Life of Blake.]
HAYLEY, WILLIAM (1745–1820), poet, second son of Thomas Hayley and Mary Yates, was born at Chichester on 29 Oct. 1745, and was sent to Eton in 1757. In 1763 he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he composed an ‘Ode on the Birth of the Prince of Wales,’ published in the Cambridge Collection, and reprinted in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for January 1763, p. 39. At Cambridge he studied Spanish under Isola, and composed several poems, many of which are printed in his memoirs. In 1766 he was admitted to the Middle Temple, but did not leave Cambridge until the following year, when he left without taking a degree, and resided with his mother in London. A tour in Scotland which he made in 1767 produced several poems, some of them addressed to Frances Page, with whom he had fallen in love in 1763. The engagement was afterwards broken off, and Hayley married Eliza, daughter of Dean Ball, who was one of his guardians, in 1769. Soon after his marriage Hayley composed a tragedy, ‘The Afflicted Father,’ which was rejected by Garrick, and in 1771 he translated Corneille's ‘Rodogune,’ which he re-named ‘The Syrian Queen,’ and which was similarly rejected by Colman. During a visit to Bristol and the west of England he met William Pitt, the future statesman, at Lyme Regis, and in 1774 settled at Eartham, Sussex. In 1775 he addressed a ‘Poetical Epistle on Marriage’ to his friend Thornton, and an ‘Ode to Cheerfulness’ to Mrs. Clyfford, and in 1777 a long poetical epistle to Dr. Long. In 1777 also commenced his friendship with Romney, to whom he addressed his ‘Epistle on Painting.’ He addressed an ‘Epistle on History’ to Gibbon (1780), a long ‘Poetical Epistle’ to Admiral Keppel (1779), an ode to Howard the philanthropist (1780), and an ‘Elegy on the Ancient Greek Model’ to the Bishop of London (1779). Hayley's married life had not been fortunate, but his illegitimate child, Thomas Alphonso Hayley [q. v.], who was born on 5 Oct. 1780, was adopted by his wife, and treated as her own son. In 1781 Hayley published his most successful poem, ‘The Triumphs of Temper’ (London, 4to), which ran through twelve or fourteen editions, and, together with his ‘Triumphs of Music’ (Chichester, 1804), was ridiculed by Byron in ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.’ In 1782 he published ‘Poetical Epistles on Epic Poetry’ addressed to Mason, and in 1785 the ‘Essay on Old Maids’ (London, 3 vols.), one of his few still readable works. In 1786 his wife's mind became affected, and a separation was arranged in 1789. Next year Hayley visited Paris, and wrote a French comedy, ‘Les préjugés abolis,’ which was never acted. In 1792 his employment on the ‘Life of Milton’ brought him into contact with Cowper, and a warm friendship sprang up between them, and soon afterwards he was introduced to William Blake by Flaxman, under whom his son was studying. The ‘Life of Milton’ was published in 1794, prefixed to Boydell and Nicols's edition of Milton's works, and a separate and enlarged edition in 1796. About this time Hayley assisted in procuring from Pitt a pension for his friend Cowper. In 1805 he published ‘Ballads founded on Anecdotes of Animals’ (Chichester, 12mo), interesting on account of the illustrations by Blake, for whose benefit the work was produced. Hayley was now engaged on a ‘Life of Cowper,’ who died in 1800, within a week of his son, and published it in 1803 [see under Cowper, William, 1731–1800.]
Hayley's wife had died in 1800, and in
